philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

White House plans new social media summit as Congress raises questions

The White House did not say who would take part in the July 11 gathering and major social media firms did not immediately confirm they would attend. White House spokesman Judd Deere said the meeting would “bring together digital leaders for a robust conversation on the opportunities and challenges of today’s online environment.”

U.S. politicians, led by Trump, have increasingly used social media to try to go around traditional media and woo voters directly via social media platforms. Trump has said on many occasions that he would have been elected without Twitter and Facebook.

Trump, who has more than 61 million Twitter followers, on Wednesday renewed his regular attacks on Twitter suggesting without offering evidence in a Fox Business Network interview that Twitter makes it “very hard for people to join me at Twitter ... and they make it very much harder for me to get out the message.

See the full story here: https://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1TR2PB

Apple’s Sidecar just really *gets* me, you know?

Sidecar, the feature that lets you use an iPad as an external display for your Mac. This is something I’ve been looking to make work since the day the iPad was released, and it’s finally here – and just about everything you could ask for.

But Sidecar is already a game-changer, and one that I will probably have a hard time living without in future – especially on the road.

Falling nicely into the ‘it just works’ Apple ethos, setting up Sidecar is incredibly simple. As long as your Mac is running macOS 10.15 Catalina, and your iPad is nearby, with Bluetooth and Wifi enabled, and running the iPadOS 13 beta, you just click on the AirPlay icon in your Mac’s Menu bar and it should show up as a display option.

Once you select your iPad, Sidecar just quickly displays an extended desktop from your Mac on the iOS device. It’s treated as a true external display in macOS System Preferences, so you can arrange it with other displays, mirror your Mac and more. The one thing you can’t do that you can do with traditional displays is change the resolution – Apple keeps things default here at 1366 x 1024, but it’s your iPad’s extremely useful native resolution (2732 x 2048, plus Retina pixel doubling for the first-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro I’m using for testing), and it means there’s nothing weird going on with pixelated graphics or funky text.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/apples-sidecar-just-really-gets-me-you-know/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter&tpcc=TCdailynewsletter

Transparent Solar Panels turn Windows into Green Energy Collectors

See the full story here: https://www.the-open-mind.com/transparent-solar-panels-will-turn-windows-into-green-energy-collectors/?fbclid=IwAR2k7Ukb17aLdVnybRb_gIRQr9I8IWmeXobN2T3tzdze03WWFBfqRvNwxng

First virtual reality gaming lounge opens in Sioux Falls

PhilNote: watch the video at the link.

Virtuality Gaming Den opened last month and offers more than 50 different games. Those games include education, escape rooms, exercise, and meditation.

At the store, you can host a variety of events from cooperate retreats to birthday parties.

There are five different rooms inside Virtuality. In front of the store, you can get the feeling of being at an amusement park. Then, head into the racing area. There are several race car rigs offered in one room. There is a room called "virtual chamber" where four different VR headsets are set up with the various games. The "free-roam" room allows up to three different players to attack zombies. Finally, there is a room solely dedicated to video game counsels. There are six different TV screens with dozens of chairs.

See the full story plus videos here: https://www.ksfy.com/content/news/First-virtual-reality-gaming-lounge-opens-in-Sioux-Falls-511834852.html

The Pentagon has a laser that can identify people from a distance—by their heartbeat

The Jetson prototype can pick up on a unique cardiac signature from 200 meters away, even through clothes.

Everyone’s heart is different. Like the iris or fingerprint, our unique cardiac signature can be used as a way to tell us apart. Crucially, it can be done from a distance.

An individual’s cardiac signature is unique, though, and unlike faces or gait, it remains constant and cannot be altered or disguised.

Contact infrared sensors are often used to automatically record a patient’s pulse. They work by detecting the changes in reflection of infrared light caused by blood flow. By contrast, the new device, called Jetson, uses a technique known as laser vibrometry to detect the surface movement caused by the heartbeat. This works though typical clothing like a shirt and a jacket (though not thicker clothing such as a winter coat).

Cardiac signatures are already used for security identification. The Canadian company Nymi has developed a wrist-worn pulse sensor as an alternative to fingerprint identification. The technology has been trialed by the Halifax building society in the UK.

One glaring limitation is the need for a database of cardiac signatures, but even without this the system has its uses. For example, an insurgent seen in a group planting an IED could later be positively identified from a cardiac signature, even if the person’s name and face are unknown.

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613891/the-pentagon-has-a-laser-that-can-identify-people-from-a-distanceby-their-heartbeat/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=74115713&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-80A6eZjoT19HSgq-zbR37I2pLMwjebbxYe7wyugRNFi5wHaySvef0jhWKAgD0d62FyFx7Q36e33K6-eJmNT2h3AyfXdA&_hsmi=74115713

Augmented Reality Changing The Factory Landscape From PTC’s Room With A View

Solving a spatial problem

The goal here is to make the factory a spatial problem. "As humans, we are spatially empowered," Heun explains. "We have superpowers in our brain to understand space. Everyone has that. Every child has that. At the moment that you put the interaction with these factories into that space where they are, you literally could enable children to operate a factory. That is how easy it is."

Heun and his team have prototyped a tool that they are developing with Lego, and allowed children to program it successfully. "I told our chairman that although this is only a small Lego toy, it can also work for a big machine. The interface is the same.

"We expect more and more from our factories, or from the world that we live in. We made everything digital, and now we want to make the real world digital as well, but we don't have the right interface for that.

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markvenables/2019/06/25/augmented-reality-changing-the-factory-landscape-from-ptcs-room-with-a-view/#38b06f5ab40a

Cemtrex Completes Development of Augmented Reality Application for National Cultural Center in Saudi Arabia

The application gives visitors an innovative and interactive experience when visiting the Center, allowing them to unveil secrets while interacting with various rooms around the venue and the community around them.

The app has many features, including:

• Users can interact with specific locations in the Pledge Room to unveil hidden animations and inspirational quotes from famous figures.
• Users can write virtual “graffiti” that is shared live with other visitors using the app.
• Users can blow into their devices to unveil inspirational and uplifting quotes.
• Users can also use custom photo filters to promote engagement with the Center and social sharing.

See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cemtrex-completes-development-augmented-reality-124000200.html

Vivo hopes augmented reality will get a second chance in the 5G era, unveils Vivo AR Glass headset

Chinese firm Vivo seems to be confident that consumer augmented reality will take off for real this time, mainly thanks to 5G.

The headset features a dual-screen display, rather than the single option on Google's mostly failed Google Glass project, and 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) to map the wearer's position in the virtual world.

The announcement was made during MWC19 Shanghai - the Far Eastern version of Mobile World Congress that occurs in Barcelona each February/March.

We'll bring you more on the Vivo AR Glass when it gets closer to release.

See the full story here: https://www.pocket-lint.com/ar-vr/news/vivo/148472-vivo-hopes-augmented-reality-will-get-a-second-chance-in-the-5g-era-unveils-vivo-ar-glass-headset

ABSOLUTELY AUGMENTED REALITY | “8 1/2 ANTI-SOCIAL MASKS FOR INSTAGRAM”

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See the full story here: https://www.flaunt.com/content/absolutely-augmented-reality

DOCTORS TO ‘STEP INSIDE’ BIOPSY SAMPLES WITH VR

“Bringing all that data into VR not only allows the scientist to see their 2D microscope images in full 3D, but to interact with the data, selecting channels, adjusting the views, colors, and contrast, and grabbing and rotating the images to quickly identify key aspects of the image that are coupled back to the disease under study.”

The eventual goal is for the researchers to share the VR tool, called ExMicroVR, on open platforms with other researchers along with expansion microscopy so that they too can view new details of disease processes and understand larger, more complex sets of data.

The system to convert expansion microscopy data into VR 3D images will be affordable and easily accessible to researchers and physicians in developing countries. It will also allow for up to six people to collaborate and view the same sample remotely at the same time.

Funding for the research came through Grand Challenges, an initiative of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

See the full story here: https://www.futurity.org/virtual-reality-disease-imaging-2090582/